The Heart Failure Academic Research Consortium is a partnership between the Heart Failure Collaboratory (HFC) and Academic Research Consortium (ARC), comprised of leading heart failure (HF) academic research investigators, patients, United States (US) Food and Drug Administration representatives, and industry members from the US and Europe. A series of meetings were convened to establish definitions and key concepts for the evaluation of HF therapies including optimal medical and device background therapy, clinical trial design elements and statistical concepts, and study endpoints. This manuscript summarizes the expert panel discussions as consensus recommendations focused on populations and endpoint definitions; it is not exhaustive or restrictive, but designed to stimulate HF clinical trial innovation., Competing Interests: Author Disclosures W.T.A. has received consulting fees from Abbott, Boehringer Ingelheim, CVRx, Edwards Lifesciences, Respicardia, and research support from the U.S. National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. M.A.P. has received consulting fees from Amgen, Cytokinetics, and Windtree, and grant support from the United States Food and Drug Administration. G.F. has received consulting income from Boehringer Ingelheim, Medtronic, Novartis, Servier, and Vifor, and lecture fees from Merck. J.L. has received consulting fees from Novartis, Abbott, ResMed, VWave, CVRx, and Cytokinetics. R.M. has received institutional research grant support from Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Bristol-Myers Squibb, CSL Behring, Eli Lilly/Daiichi-Sankyo, Medtronic, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, and OrbusNeich; has served on scientific advisory boards of PLx Opco/PLx Pharma, Medtelligence (Janssen Scientific Affairs), and Bristol-Myers Squibb; has served on the executive committees of Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Osprey Medical; has served on the data safety monitoring board of Watermark Research Partners; has served as a consultant for Abbott Laboratories, Abiomed (spouse), Boston Scientific, Cardiovascular Systems, Medscape/Web MD, Siemens Medical Solutions, The Medicines Company (spouse), Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Roivant Sciences, Spectranetics/Philips/Volcano Corporation, and Sanofi; and has equity in Claret Medical and Elixir Medical Corporation. J.L.J. is a trustee of the American College of Cardiology, is a board member of Imbria Pharmaceuticals, has received grant support from Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Roche Diagnostics, Abbott, Singulex and Prevencio, consulting income from Abbott, Janssen, Novartis, Pfizer, Merck, and Roche Diagnostics, and participates in clinical endpoint committees/data safety monitoring boards for Abbott, AbbVie, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Janssen, and Takeda. M.A.K. has received consulting fees from Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Novartis; and grants and research support from Ironwood and Livanova. M.W.K. has received consulting fees from Abbott Vascular, Angel Medical Systems, Biosensors, CSI, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, OrbusNeich, and St Jude Medical, and has received grant funding from Abbott Vascular, Angel Medical Systems, Boston Scientific, Medtronic, OrbusNeich, Biosensors, CSI, and St Jude Medical. E.F.L. has received consulting fees from Novartis, and institutional research grant support from Amgen, Novartis, and Sanofi. J.P.P. has received grant support from Abbott, the American Heart Association, the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation, Bayer, Boston Scientific, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and Philips, and has received consulting fees from Abbott, Allergan, ARCA Biopharma, Biotronik, Boston Scientific, LivaNova, Medtronic, Milestone, Sanofi, Philips, and Up-to-Date. S.D.S. has received research grants from Alnylam, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bellerophon, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celladon, Cytokinetics, Eidos, Gilead, GlaxoSmithKline, Ionis, Lone Star Heart, Mesoblast, MyoKardia, U.S. National Institutes of Health/National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, Novartis, Sanofi Pasteur, and Theracos; and consulting fees from Akros, Alnylam, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cardior, Corvia, Cytokinetics, Gilead, GlaxoSmithKline, Ironwood, Merck Sharpe & Dohme, Novartis, Roche, Takeda, Theracos, Quantum Genetics, Cardurion, AoBiome, Janssen, and Cardiac Dimensions. J.R.T. has received consulting fees from Amgen, Bayer, Cytokinetics, Novartis, and Stealth Health, and research funding from Abbott, Amgen, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis, scPharma. S.D.A. has received clinical trial-related fees from Abbott Vascular, Servier, Vifor, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Thermo Fisher, Respicardia, and Novartis. C.M.O’C. has received research support from Roche Diagnostics; has received research support and is a consultant for Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Windtree, and Neurotronik, and is a co-owner of Biscardia. All other authors have nothing to disclose. The views expressed in this manuscript are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the United States Food and Drug Administration or the United States Department of Health and Human Services., (Copyright © 2020. Published by Elsevier Inc.)